Winston's War

by Michael Dobbs

  The decree was prompted by the feeling that an excellent opportunity of inculcating Fascist ideals in the youthful Italian mind was being neglected by allowing pure fancy to run riot in the pictures and “comic strips” of the colored juvenile weeklies which are as common in Italy as in any other country. Publishers and editors were accordingly informed that these periodicals must in the future be used to exalt the military and heroic virtues of the Italian race. The foreign stuff was to go.

  But an exception has now been made in favor of Mr. Walt Disney on account of the acknowledged artistic merit of his work…

  Mac had just come out of the Odeon cinema in Notting Hill Gate. A Noël Coward comedy. He'd laughed and rocked until the tears poured down his face, the first time he'd laughed in ever so long. And he'd not cried since the camps. Good to forget your troubles, to have things touch you. He had stayed on to watch it all over again, hiding for a while in the toilets, dodging the beam of the usherette's flashlight that swept like a searchlight across the rows of seats, happy to be lost in a world of make-believe. Anyway, it was warmer here than in his small flat. He was economizing, saving on coal, uncertain of what might lie ahead. He might laugh, but still he couldn't trust. And he was beginning to feel the insidious dampness of an English autumn seeping into his bones, even though it was as warm as any summer's day in the camp. He must be getting old.

  When finally he left the cinema, he began walking up the hill in Ladbroke Grove towards the church that stood guard at the top. It was a clear night, bright moon, autumn breezes tugging the last of the leaves from the trees. Hard times to come. Barely a light to be seen, but for the moon that hung above St. John's, casting long shadows all around, stretching out, pursuing him, like his memories. He buried his hands in his thin overcoat, counting the few pennies of change in his pocket for comfort, and hurried on. He had a coat, and boots, money in his pocket, a bed to sleep on, and coal in his scuttle, if he needed it. Why, he'd even treated himself to chocolate ice cream at the cinema. A life of ease. But not at ease, never at ease. As he pushed on up the hill he found he was growing breathless—perhaps the unaccustomed laughter had been too much for him—and when he reached the purple-dark outlines of the church he sat down on the edge of a leaning gravestone to catch his wind. His breath was beginning to condense, like mists of ice powder that he remembered would settle round your beard and freeze your lips together, tearing the flesh if you tried to eat, if you had anything to eat. Then you could feel your eyeballs beginning to turn to frost so that they would not close, and your brain began to freeze so hard that you wondered if this was going to be the last moon you would ever see, but you knew that the ground was already too hard for them to bury you, so they would leave you under a thin scattering of rocks, for the foxes.

  But this was England! Such things never happened here. The English wouldn't allow it. Mr. Chamberlain had promised. An Englishman's promise. We could sleep soundly in our beds, burn our coal, enjoy our little luxuries of chocolate ice cream and cake, safe in the knowledge that we didn't need to worry and that when we died of very old age they would bury us deep and the tears wouldn't freeze even before they hit the ground. That's how it would be, in England, at least. The Empire would insist on it.

  He sat, desperately wanting the world to stand still, but even as he watched, the moon moved on. Dry leaves were caught by the gentle wind and scuttled in waves around his ankles, like the sound of sea breaking on shingle. As it had broken that day on the beach in Solovetsky.

  Suddenly the tears were flowing again. He felt weak, and shamed by it, glad there was no one on the street to see him. But why did the opinion of others matter? His was a life alone, cut off from emotion, a life rebuilt only for himself—and why not, when there was no one else there for him? Not after little Moniek had gone. For half his time on this earth his only god had been survival. What happened in the rest of the world and to the rest of the world was for him a matter of complete inconsequence. Another man's rations, his blanket, his work detail, sometimes even another man's name, had on more than one occasion been the difference between death and tomorrow. It had all grown to be so simple, a world in which he would gladly exchange a man's life for an hour of sunshine. Yet now tears fell, uncontrollably. Tears for the life he had lost. And the lives that he knew would now be lost. The lives of those who had stared at him with those gaunt, awful eyes from the frames of the Pathé News film he had just seen, the fear in their faces made bright by the burning of the synagogues around them. He knew those faces, for he could see himself in every one. He wept, hoping the tears might douse the flames.

  “Another brandy, McCrieff.” The proposal was placed with all the subtlety of a German ultimatum to a minor Middle-European enclave.

  “That's most obliging of you. Just a wee one, if you insist, Sir Joseph. It's been a splendid dinner.”

  “The first of many, we hope.” Horace Wilson reappeared from behind the glow of his cigar.

  “That would indeed be pleasant. My club—the Caledonian—next time, if I may insist?” An edge of uncertainty had slipped into the Scotsman's voice—wouldn't these great men find the Caledonian too gruesomely provincial for their tastes? He was uncertain of the tastes of fashionable Westminster; he felt the need to strengthen his hand. “Their kitchens may lack a little subtlety, of course, but the cellars are filled with some particularly fine single malts that I think might tempt you. Not that I've got anything against the French, you understand,” he reassured them, draining his balloon, wishing alcohol hadn't dulled his wits, “but I know where my loyalties lie.”

  “You fish, McCrieff?”

  “I could tie a fly before I could fasten my own shoelaces.”

  “Then I think we should arrange for you to join the Prime Minister and me when we next come up to the Dee. Probably at Easter. You could spare a day, could you?”

  “I'd be honored, Sir Joseph, truly. But I'm aware that you're all such busy men, I'd hate to think I might become a distraction.”

  “Ah, distractions, McCrieff, distractions. Life is so full of distractions. Wars, revolutions, scandal, strikes, floods—not to mention being forced to follow on behind the Australians. There are so many distractions in politics, so many things that are thrust upon you. Ah, but then there are the distractions you create.”

  The Smoking Room of the Reform Club creaked with ancient red leather and history. It was a club created a century before for the singular purpose of celebrating emancipation. One Man, One Vote—or rather, one property, one vote, a twist of the rudder designed to steer a course between the distractions of revolution and repression that were bringing chaos to the rest of Europe.

  “But don't you know, McCrieff, I've always regarded the greatest distraction in political life as being women. Don't you agree, Horace?”

  “Women? Certainly. Did for Charles Stewart Parnell. Damn nearly did for Lloyd George, too. Should've done for him, if you ask my opinion.”

  “Might even do for this Government, if we let 'em.”

  McCrieff's brow puckered; he'd lost the thread. He readjusted his position in his armchair by the fire, sitting well back, listening to the leather creak, trying to convey to the others the illusion that he was entirely comfortable inside the maze of high politics. But women? Had Chamberlain got himself into difficulties on account of—no, ridiculous thought. Not Chamberlain, of all people. More likely the Archbishop than the Undertaker. Chamberlain just wasn't the type. So where did women come into it?

  “Forgive me, gentlemen, but I'm not sure I entirely follow your—”

  Ball cut him off ruthlessly. “What do you think of your local MP, McCrieff? The Duchess?”

  McCrieff retreated from Ball's stare and gazed into the fire. Their invitation had been so unexpected, so urgent in tone—was this what it was about? The Duchess of Atholl? And if so, which way did loyalty lean? Towards her? Or away? No matter how hard he stared he could find no answer in the fire, yet some edge in Ball's tone told him that his answer ma
ttered. He would have to tread with considerably more caution than he had dined. “As you are well aware, gentlemen, I am what I think it's fair to describe as an influential member of the Kinross and West Perthshire constituency association. I also wish to become a Member of Parliament myself. I'm not sure it would be wise for me to go round criticizing those who I'd like to become my colleagues.”

  “You'd sit with Socialists?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you'd sit with the Duchess? Support her causes?”

  “Well, she has a fair few of those, to be sure. Not all of them to my taste.”

  “Nor to the taste of others, McCrieff. Including the Prime Minister.”

  “Strange, so strange the causes she adopts,” Wilson added. “Once heard her make a speech about female circumcision amongst the Kikuyu in Africa. Took up hours of parliamentary time on it, refused to give way. Quite extraordinary performance.” He was shaking his head but not taking his eyes for a moment off McCrieff. “Not, of course, that as a civil servant I have any views on these matters, but personally and entirely privately…”

  They were interrupted when a claret-coated club steward produced fresh drinks and fussed around the fire, stoking it back to life and propelling a curl of coal smoke into the room. McCrieff was glad of the opportunity to think. He was a laird, a Scottish farmer, not a fool. He had been invited to dine by two men who knew he had considerable influence in a constituency where the MP was one of the most troublesome members on the Government back benches. He'd guessed they wanted to talk about considerably more than fishing. He swirled the caramel liquor in his glass, where it formed a little whirlpool of alcohol. Suddenly it had all become mixed with intrigue. There was a danger he might get sucked down.

  “Yes, speaking personally, McCrieff,” Ball picked up the conversation, “privately, just between the three of us—how do you feel about the Duchess?' The revived firelight was reflecting from Ball's circular spectacles. His eyes had become two blazing orbs, making it seem as though a soul-consuming fire were burning inside. This was a dangerous man.

  “Gentlemen,” McCrieff began slowly, stepping out carefully as though walking barefoot through a field of broken glass, “one of you is the most powerful man in the party, the other the most significant man in Government next to the Prime Minister himself. And I am a man of some political ambition.” He paused, holding in his hands both opportunity and extinction. Time to choose. “How would you like me to feel about the Duchess?”

  The lights burned unusually late on the top floor of the Express building in Fleet Street. It was well past the dining hour. A group of five journalists, all men, mostly young, had already been closeted in the boardroom for three nights that week, and another night beckoned. The work was tiring and the banter with which they had begun had long since passed into a bleak determination to finish the job. They had been provided with all the tools—sheaves of writing paper, envelopes, twenty-seven separate lists of addresses. The lists had arrived by courier marked for the attention of the deputy editor, who had removed the cover letter and any trace of their origins.

  They wrote. Some used typewriters, the others wrote by hand. A total of more than five hundred letters, many purportedly from ex-servicemen, intended for opinion-formers within the twenty-seven constituencies. As the week had passed, any sense of restraint had dimmed, their language had grown ever more colorful, the metaphors more alarming.

  The Bolshies are regicides. Is that what you want? I would hazard the conjecture that the Germans, the most efficient fighting machine on this earth, would go through the rag-bag of Reds like a hot knife through butter. Take care you are not standing in the way when it happens!

  It was the season for mud and muck, it was inevitable that some of it should spread out and stick. And so they toiled, disturbed by nothing more than the chiming of the clock, the drumming of typewriter keys, the scratching of nibs, the occasional flooding of a handkerchief—one of them had been dragged from his sick bed despite the protestations of his wife. Death and misery were much on his mind.

  If you vote for the Duchess there will be war, and your sons will all be killed, like mine were in the last war, butchered by German steel. Can you bear that on your conscience?

  There were alternative strategies in use. One of his colleagues preferred to inspire by adulation:

  Mr. Neville Chamberlain is a saint. He has saved us. There is war in China, in Abyssinia, in Spain. Hundreds of thousands have already died. If Britain goes to war, that will surely be our fate. Yet even though the Prime Minister is an elderly man he has thrown himself into his duties, flying three times to Germany though he had never before flown, hurled himself into the breach, unsparing of his time, uncaring of his health and safety. His one ambition has been PEACE. Peace for this time, peace for all time. He is surely amongst the great men of all time. That is why I will do anything to support him. I trust you will, too, by letting your MP know [underlined twice, in squiggly waves] of the strength of feeling of the ordinary people in this country.

  He signed it Mrs. Ada Boscombe.

  It was ten minutes or more after the clock had marked nine when the doors of the lift opened. Two butlers emerged, dressed in tails and stiff wing collars, bearing substantial silver trays. On one was heaped a steaming tangle of brick-red lobsters, all claws and alarmed eyes, accompanied by a large dish of clear molten butter and surrounded by a plentiful garnish of sliced cucumber and tomato. The other tray bore three bottles of chilled Pol Roger champagne and five crystal glasses.

  “With the compliments of 'is Lordship,” the first butler informed them, placing his tray on the sideboard, producing knives, forks, and linen napkins like a magician from deep pockets inside his jacket. “And 'e says to make sure you bring the silver trays back.”

  They had come, in unprecedented numbers. Every seat was occupied, every corner crowded. The Duchess had remarked on the numbers, and on the fact that many of the faces seemed unfamiliar to her, but her agent assured her that apart from a handful of journalists they were all paid-up members of the association. “The times are very political, Your Grace,” he had explained. What he declined to tell her, and what she was never to know, was how many of those fresh faces had had their membership dues paid in the last few days by William McCrieff. As McCrieff had put it to him, many ordinary voters in the constituency had been galvanized by the events of recent weeks and he had persuaded them to join, urged on by great issues such as war and peace—and, the agent suspected, by an extra pound in their pockets for their trouble in attending a political meeting, not to mention the promise of free hospitality afterwards. Even if many of those gathered together had been members for no more than six days and some for no longer than six hours, there was nothing in the rules to prevent such a show of interest and enthusiasm. In any event it was bound to be a meeting of exceptional significance for it had been convened to decide whom they should choose as a candidate to fight the next election. And the agent, like so many members loyal to the causes of appeasement and a comfortable life, found the Duchess about as comfortable as an ice storm in August. She was always lecturing, hectoring. Not like McCrieff. His methods were different. A quiet word, a dram or two, and the business was done. A good party man, was McCrieff, unlike the Duchess. She not only had her own opinions—so many of them—but insisted on sharing them. A grave fault in a politician, the agent reckoned, perhaps a mortal one. Anyway, the chairman had just called the meeting to order; they were soon to find out.

  They had been to see George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman at the Old Vic—a splendid performance, she'd thought, with Valerie Tudor and Anthony Quayle, but he found it a preposterous play, like most of the stuff the old man produced. All those left-wing ideas tangled up in his bloody beard, which were then scraped off like yesterday's lunch. He thought Quayle's role as Tanner had been absurd, and played in the same manner—all this guff about woman being the pursuer and man the pursued. But Anna Maria had warmed to it, said it wa
s splendid and up-to-date, seemed to enjoy wrapping herself in theatrical fantasy. So he indulged her, and for once bit his tongue.

  He hadn't wanted the evening to end—he thought about inviting her back for a drink at his home in Lord North Street, which was near at hand, but he didn't know her well enough and was afraid it might sound predatory and she would say no. He didn't know how to deal with rejection from women—his mother had always treated him as nothing better than an inconvenience, and after he had left the family home he had made it a rule in his carefully constructed life never to put himself into a position where rejection might be possible. Yet he did not want to simply say goodnight. So he had suggested that they not drive all the way home, but stop on the other side of the park from where they could walk the last stretch to her front door. She had accepted with a smile.

  He had deliberately taken the long way round, leading her through Hyde Park until they had arrived at the Serpentine where the rowing boats were tied up in a miniature armada and little waves lapped at the edges of the ink-black pond. She looped her arm through his, clinging tighter than was strictly necessary. Perhaps he should have invited her back for a drink after all.

  “So do you think there will be war, Bendy?” She had given him a nickname. He'd never had a nickname before.

  “Hope not,” he replied, not wanting to alarm her.

  “But your Mr. Churchill says he thinks there will be.”

  And he found himself irritated. Churchill was his hero, his political master, yet Bracken was growing to resent the manner in which others treated him as little more than an adjunct to the elder statesman, and no one took him more for granted than the old man himself. “Don't know what's going on with Winston. Very peculiar,” he muttered. “He—perhaps I shouldn't be telling you this, but—well, he's got money problems and asked me to help him. To see if I could find a backer, someone to provide him with a loan to get him through. So I've been running around all over London making inquiries and then, just yesterday, he tells me to stop. No explanation. No thanks. Just—” He waved his hands in dismissal.